


My Body's an Anchor

by KassDee



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-06-12
Updated: 2013-06-12
Packaged: 2017-12-14 18:58:49
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,869
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/840266
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/KassDee/pseuds/KassDee





	My Body's an Anchor

Two days had passed since Davos had unfurled the neglected message from the wall on the table before Stannis. In just another day, Dragonstone would be all but empty. Stannis and Melisandre and his army would leave to defend the North; Davos would leave with Sallador Saan for White Harbor in hopes of gaining the strength of the Manderlys to Stannis’s cause.

The days were cool as preparations were made for travel but the seas were calm and promising. This day Stannis saw few visitors. In the very early morning, when the air was still wet with dew and chilly from winds off of the sea, Stannis had sent for breakfast but eaten alone in his bedchamber. After he finished his toast, his egg, and two sausages he had dressed and gone to his council room, spent the day staring at maps with Melisandre by his side like a shadow. Every time he glanced at one of her many candles he thought he could see figures moving amongst the flames is if they were armies emerging from a forest, but he would blink and the figures would dance away. He told himself that it was his nerves. He had been on edge since hearing Davos read from the parchment, “a raven from the haunted forest...under attack...we fear Mormont slain with all his strength.”

It was all Melisandre had whispered in his ear since he had met her. He was Azor Ahai reborn and it was his duty and his destiny to save and protect the realm from the dangers beyond the wall and night that never ends. But perhaps in his heart he had not believed her, only needed her. It was his duty to be king, to save the realm from starvation and protect them from each other, and he believed she could help him in that. But so far in his endeavor he had only lead hundreds of men to their deaths on a flaming river, been denied King’s Landing, and retreated back to Dragonstone like he had when Storm’s End had been denied to him all those years ago.

It was not a comfort to think that Melisandre was right all along, that something else was coming. Slain with all his strength. How much strength must a man have to resist the forces of the darkness? Azor Ahai or not, it had been some time now since Stannis had felt strong.

When he returned to his chamber that night, his back ached. His shoulders, too, felt as though they had strained under a great weight for a long time.

He lit a fire, removed his gloves and his leather tunic. A servant poured him wine and he stood by the fire, watching for the armies to reappear, waiting for some glimpse of how this future might unfold, but it did not come to him.

A knock at his door startled him.

“Yes?” he questioned.

“The Onion Knight,” responded the guard outside his door.

“Send him in.”

When Davos entered the room he looked as exhausted as Stannis felt.

“Long day?” Stannis asked him.

“No longer than any other,” Davos responded with a sigh. “It is true though that they have felt longer as of late.”

“Indeed,” Stannis said, taking another sip of his wine. After a pause he continued, “Do you have some business for me?”

“No, Your Grace, no business. I simply came to see how you were, to assure there was no change of plan.”

“There cannot be a change of plan now, Davos,” Stannis said. “I am king, whether it please me or not, and I must do what is necessary for the realm.”

“I sense it does not please you,” Davos said, his voice just above a murmur.

“It worries me,” Stannis replied.

“It worries me as well.”

“You won’t be at the wall,” Stannis reproached, “The highest of your concerns is whether Lord Manderly will accidentally sit on your hand at dinner. You’d lose your remaining fingers.”

Davos ignored the joke. “The highest of my concerns is the safety of my king.”

Stannis looked up from the fire and from his wine. Davos was standing closer than he had expected.

“Higher than your concern for your son?” Stannis tested.

“No,” Davos admitted.

“Good. Try not to worry too much for me then.”

They were both quiet. The room filled with the sound of the crackling fire. Davos walked to Stannis’s side and looked into the flames with him. Stannis wondered what he saw, if anything. He knew that Davos did not believe in the power of the Lord of Light or of Melisandre, but he wondered if he still stared into the flames with searching eyes. Wasn’t it the desire of every man to have some small glimpse of the future, some assurance that his path was right?

“Davos?”

“Yes?”

“What do you see in the fire?”

“I don’t see anything,” Davos said. He sounded almost sorry. “Do you see something?”

“I saw an army,” Stannis told him.

“Whose army?” Davos asked, a note of alarm now in his voice.

“I don’t know,” Stannis said, “but it seemed to me an army of darkness, of shadows betweens the flames. Hundreds and hundreds of soldiers not touched by any light.”

Davos looked at Stannis now. Stannis could feel his gaze on his face even though his own eyes were still on the fire.

“Do you believe it was a prophecy?” Davos asked. “A message from the Lord of Light?”

“No,” Stannis confessed. “No, I don’t believe it was. But sometimes...” he paused. “Sometimes I wish that the Lord of Light would tell her how it’s going to end. Just so I’d know.”

“Is that what you need her for?” Davos asked. Stannis was not sure what he meant and he was not sure that he could answer. He did not feel sure now that he knew exactly what he needed Melisandre for, and so he was silent. But Davos was not.

“What do you need?” he asked.

Stannis found that he was reaching for Davos. He wound his fingers around Davos’s wrist before his mind stopped to think the answer to his question. Davos didn’t startle when Stannis jerked him to face him, as though this was what he needed too.

They opened their mouths against each others, their breaths hot, escaping from their lungs and dusting over each others skin, their shallow cheeks. Their lips were chapped and caught on each other like velcro as they moved. Stannis’s sharp nose dug into Davos’s face. He moved like he had never kissed before, urgent and hesitant at the same time, his fingers wrapped tightly around Davos’s wrist, digging into the grooves and notches there, but he pulled himself in and out of Davos’s space, the kiss balanced between close-mouthed and pressing, open-mouthed and begging, just barely a kiss at all. Stannis pulled away again, his lips were wet from Davos’s tracing tongue, so used to mouths that were not his own. Davos tried to lean back in but he found himself restrained, Stannis’s hold on his wrist still just as tight. Stannis let his forehead stay resting against Davos’s but he would not let their mouths touch.

“Ser Davos,” he said, just another ragged exhale.

Davos leaned in again, struggling against Stannis’s hold, his jaw reaching and his mouth still open. “My king,” he said and Stannis could feel the words as they tickled against his own lips. And then he could feel Davos’s free hand at his hip, his shortened fingers under the hem of his shirt, dragging softly over the sliver of skin.

“Davos,” he said again, this time his breath shaking. He loosened his grip on Davos’s wrist. He let him free his hand and bring it to his other hip but he still would not let him kiss him. He felt Davos’s hands continue to wander his stomach, one thumb stroking the dark hair trailing up to his belly button, the other counting ribs.

Because Davos could not kiss his lips he brought his mouth to his chin and to his neck. He kissed over stubble and over the pumping of blood. He brought his lips to the hollow under Stannis’s ear and kissed there as well. “What do you want?” he asked, but Stannis could not answer. Davos brought his hand up further over Stannis’s chest under his shirt, moving to his back, his forefinger skating down his spine.

“What do you need?”

Stannis opened his mouth again. Words did not fall out but a sound escaped him, echoing from his throat, a hum and a moan both. His hands grabbed for Davos again. He twisted his fists into Davos’s clothes. He tugged and stumbled until they both fell back onto his bed, the perfectly made sheets crumpling under them. He felt Davos’s entire weight on him, suffocating him and shielding him, holding him. He let Davos kiss him again. He let his thin lips be touched again and again, trapped between teeth. Stannis’s hand found the small of Davos’s back and the curve of his tailbone. He moved his touch over Davos’s shoulder blades, the back of his head and neck.

Davos began to pull away and Stannis found the muscles in his arms straining to keep him close. His hand slid from Davos’s back as he stood though and soon he was not touching him at all; he could only watch him hovering above him in the wobbling darkness. Stannis felt light. He felt nauseous. A fear shot through him that he was to be left alone, his mind and his body unsatisfied and incomplete, but Davos’s hands were on him again in an instant, undoing the ties of his shirt. Davos kissed his nipple and each of his ribs, his beard scratching Stannis’s skin as he did so. Stannis could not imagine his thin pale chest as desirable but then his shaking hands undid the front of Davos’s shirt. He saw that he too was just a sallow, skinny man with only the muscles in his arms and his strong stomach left to show that he was once a young man with the handsome glow of youth, and yet Stannis still wanted to put his hands on him and wind his arms around him, gathering him in again, feeling his flesh and bone.

Stannis was unaccustomed to lust but he wanted Davos to be inside of him and he wanted to be in Davos. He wanted to be one creature. He was so weary of duty and so tired of being king. He was done with the ache of unaccomplished tasks, and the dull gnawing of obligation to be unloved, by his wife and by his brothers and by his kingdom. He wanted to be swept under the waves with the smuggler who knew the sea well enough to steer him home. He wanted to be kissed again and again on his forehead and his stomach and his knees and his knuckles and to be undivided from that affection, for it not to stop at his skin but to sink into him and take hold like an anchor in his heavy heart.


End file.
